Olympic Gold Medal Sailor Makes It Through Some Very Rough Abcs

Jewell, 30, said it wasn`t until she was in high school that she learned she had dyslexia-a reading disability in which words and letters appear scrambled.

``I still hate reading and writing,`` said Jewell, a Newport, R.I., resident who won her medal in the women`s 470 Class sailing competition at Pusan, South Korea.

Jewell told the reading class at Hugh Cole School, whose members need extra help in reading, that she continues to work hard at verbal skills.

As an example of her difficulty, Jewell wrote the words DOG and BOG on the blackboard. ``I sometimes look at it (DOG) like this,`` Jewell said, pointing to the word BOG.

She said she was able to get by early in school because she memorized words visually. But when she got to high school, Jewell said, ``my mother realized I couldn`t read.``

At the time, Jewell was reading at a fourth-grade level and was having trouble writing papers.

In school there were no programs for such problems, so she had to attend a remedial school. The outside help, Jewell said, was ``embarrassing and difficult to adjust to.``

Things didn`t change much when she attended Boston University. ``When I went to BU, I had to work very hard on reading and writing,`` Jewell said.

At BU she became a member of the sailing team but the dyslexia also presented a problem when Jewell tried to improve her sailing skills. People would bring in sailing magazines with information they felt she needed to know in order to become a better sailor.

Jewell said she and her Olympic teammate, Allison Jolly, knew there were three things they had to do to win the gold medal-be strong, be in great physical shape and be smart.

Both women underwent vigorous exercise programs. The smartness came in reading about the strong currents and winds off the Korean coast where the competition would be held. During the racing off Pusan, Jewell said she was

``scared to death`` by waves 12 feet high.

``The waves were as tall as this ceiling,`` Jewell told the students.

``One race I thought I was going to lose my life. But, this was the Olympics.``

As for competing in another Olympics, Jewell, who is expecting a daughter around Christmas, said, ``It`s hard to say.``

Jewell is now executive director of Sail Newport, a nonprofit group that promotes sailing. In her work, it takes her three or four times to read material that years ago took seven or eight tries. She forces herself to read at least one book a year.

``It`s amazing the world revolves around reading and writing,`` she said.